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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807226">Hard Day for Dreaming</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalx58/pseuds/kalx58'>kalx58</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Porn, Denial of Feelings, Dirty Talk, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gentle Sex, Hate Sex, Rough Sex, Sleeping Together, and therapy, but ambiguous setting and could possibly be read as canon-y, grappling with Feelings (oh no), me sternly lecturing: and you two need to be nicer to each other do you hear me??</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:16:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,831</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalx58/pseuds/kalx58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey knows exactly what this is. Ben does, too. Right?</p><p>  <i>So, yes. Sometimes it hurts. But she likes it. </i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>138</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Reylo Hidden Gems</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hard Day for Dreaming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yes, sometimes it hurts. After. Shifting in her seat, a throb Rey realizes mid-sentence, making her trail off stupidly while Finn looks at her weird. Or initially, when Ben’s pressing in, trying to make eye contact, the way he always does. Scrutinizing her to see how her face changes and contorts as it makes room for him. Because he likes it.</p><p>Not, she thinks, hurting her. Well, maybe that’s part of it. But from the things he says, it’s everything that comes with it. You know—look at how you take me, you’re so fucking wet Rey, oh come on, we both know you can take it. And you like it, huh, don’t you? The kind of stupid masculine thing she rolls her eyes at when she thinks about it later, when he’s gone. (And when she’s not—well, whatever.)</p><p>And it’s not like she can help it. He’s so big that of course she whines and thrashes a little as he grips her hips and presses in. Holding her steady. He likes that. Or more accurately, maybe, holding her down. Hard enough that she can't really move. But then that leads to more questions: Does she want to move? Squirm away from him and his too-big dick? Does she even like this at all?</p><p>He’d told her she did. “Look at how wet you are. Fuck, Rey. You want this.” She hadn’t said anything. Just kind of growled and shifted her hips up, letting her cunt get used to him. And then he’d added, quieter, almost a question: “See?”</p><p>That flash of insecurity: kinda pathetic, right? (Nothing else. She doesn’t feel any small, sharp stab of—something once she recognizes it.) Just like she’d told him once, in front of everyone. Sneering, making herself as sharp and mean as she could, forcing her anger into a sleek, weaponized thing instead of something that took over, made her useless and shaking with the rage she sometimes felt.</p><p>But he had started it. Commenting on her and Finn. Looking at her in that too-long, heavy-feeling way. Laughing at her when she made a mistake practicing. And so the words had tumbled out: you’re still hanging around here, at your family’s camp. Came crawling back, because you have nothing else, nowhere else to go? God, you’re pathetic.</p><p>It’s a strange thing. Because he’s bigger than her. Stronger, probably and he likes it when she squirms. But: she can make him cry. Or come close, at least. Something that he'll never have on her, because she never cries.</p><p>And to be honest, she kind of...likes it, maybe. Seeing the flashes of weakness in him. He’d been so intimidating when they first met, when he’d started telling her all those nice things that had twisted into awfulness, his voice growing passionate: how she was better than all this, how she was so, so good at it, how she needed to get beyond here if she was ever going to succeed, how you’ll end up trapped here, and how they don’t know what they’re talking about. And—the anvil dropped—you don’t belong here. So loud, so awful, it had covered the second part of what he’d said: I can show you. I can help you.</p><p>It had gouged her. The idea that she didn’t belong at this soft place she’d landed. How she’d have keeping seeking out more. It had hurt so much, that the realization of her own power had come as a surprise: how she can hurt him, in turn. How she can bite him until red marks appear, spit something she doesn’t even quite believe at him. Make him weak.</p><p>Does that, and her tiny thrill at it, make her a bad person? Maybe. And that’s not good, because she’s trying to be better. To make herself happier, shinier, less troubled for this nicer world she’s ended up in. Plus, she’d come to realize that the meanness never felt as good as she’d thought. Unsurprising, since Rey knew how everything had its cost, every tiny victory had its resulting failure.</p><p>Which is why it had made sense, how she’d almost expected the roughness as he’d fucked her that night, after she’d told him all those mean things. “Ow,” she’d said as he’d shoved in. “Fuck you, Ben.”</p><p>He’d stopped. “Does that hurt, Rey? Do you not like this?” Then he’d reached down and twisted her nipple. Hard. She’d jerked up off the bed. And he’d smiled, then continued. He’d been rough, but Rey can take it. Likes that she can take it. Likes it when it’s not too nice. When she had to search out the pleasure, sift it out from overwhelming pressure and size oh-that’s-fast of him and his movements. When she has to earn it. Because once she’s earned it, it’s hers, and she can enjoy it.</p><p>So, yes. Sometimes it hurts. But she likes it.</p><p>Tonight, though, is different. Blowing up at Luke like that: so stupid. She’s ungrateful. Undeserving of everything they’ve done for her. And she’s self-aware enough to realize that this isn’t the right way to cope, the words clanking around in her head as she’d fled, walking past all the smiling pairs and groups of the other students: if you feel lonely and sad, don’t retreat. And she’s trying, is always trying, to be better and happier and normal and more deserving of everything they’ve done for her. But she can only do so much.</p><p>And when she opened the door to her room, he’d been there.(She never knows exactly how he gets in here, if he does the same bobby pin-shove-curse combination she uses when getting into his room. And she thinks again, briefly, about how there are other ways they could communicate with each other.) Ben: tapping his foot irritably, lounging on her bed. (Well, as much as a man that big can lounge. He never looks comfortable, always tensed for a threat. Except, maybe: eyes closed, full lips sighing when he stops moving, is finally fully inside her.</p><p>She wants to go down on him, she thinks as she shuts the door, giving him a brief, tight nod. But she’s exhausted. Wants to sit and be comfortable, take her time with him. Watch him fall apart, fully enjoy the weird transformation her anger always goes through when they do this: how it flows through their sex and then, somehow, just seems to dissipate.</p><p>“Can you stand?” she asks after she takes her clothes off. (Because she knows she’s going to touch herself during, and she knows he likes playing with her tits while she does this, long arms reaching down to twist and pinch and distract while she drools all over him.)</p><p>He looks at her questioningly, like there’s something he wants to say. There always is, isn’t there? In his gaze or words, there’s always something that Ben wants to impress upon her. (“I want to help you, teach you, he can’t help you like I can—”)</p><p>One of the only times she’d seen him speechless was when she’d rolled her eyes at him mid-rant, and rested her hand deliberately on his hip. After she’d watched his mouth form the familiar shapes—you’ll never succeed here, don’t listen to them, I know how to help you get stronger—and she’d realized she wanted to drag her cunt down his face, over the sharp jut of his nose and the soft pout of his mouth. Intelligent, older, owners-son Ben Solo, befuddled by the idea that she could rage at everything he said and did (you think you know me, you don’t know shit, you treat your family so terrible, you say these awful things, and your mom is trying, you asshole—) but still want him.</p><p>Rey yawns. And then he’s standing in front of her, pants and underwear down, dick mostly hard in his grip. She grabs his hips, rubbing over the hip bones for a moment before pressing her fingers in and leaning forward.</p><p>Her eyes flutter shut. She likes this. Her mouth full, his taste, the noise he makes when she flattens her tongue against his vein. One of the first times, he’d tried to make fun of her for liking it. “Oh fuck, you’re so—you like sucking my dick, Rey?” A desperate attempt to retilt, she thought, annoyed, a way to regain his smugness after he’d been brainless and trembling after she’d swallowed him. But he’s bad at lying (maybe part of why he’d left his old job and come back here) and she’d shoved at his head and told him to shut the fuck up. And the noises he’d made as he bent his head and licked and kissed all the evidence of just how much she’d enjoyed sucking his dick had been almost incredulous. Awestruck, even? Rey had wondered as she’d come.</p><p>Tonight, he’s already close. Maybe he likes how little she’d talked, she thinks. Usually, they have something to fling at each other. Or maybe she just has a perfect mouth, like he’d choked out the last time they’d done this, right before he’d come. (She wants him to talk more, but hasn’t quite cracked the code of how to get him to do it without realizing she’s asking for it.) When she feels his big fingers tangling in her hair, she prepares herself for the overwhelming feeling of him pushing deeper into her mouth. But instead, he pulls away.</p><p>She sniffs and blinks while he stares at her with that strange look, the same one he had on when she walked in. Then, as she starts to frown at his dawdling, he swallows. “Get on all fours.”</p><p>Thank God. It’s how she prefers it, but he’s always so fucking annoying. Trying to wrangle her onto her back under him, or contort them so they’re facing each other. She likes riding him. But it’s weird, the way he looks at her sometimes. So she tries to avoid it.</p><p>Oh, so this is your plan, Rey thinks as she feels his tongue start to drag up her cunt, a meandering, quintessential-maddening-Ben-Solo journey to her clit. He wants to fuck her hard, is getting her ready. He is, she admits to herself (never to him), very good at this.</p><p>(Not always. The first time they did this, she wanted him—his largeness underneath her, the power that came with it—so much that her own pleasure became an afterthought. Not that he’d let that slide for long. Soon, he was looking up at her from between her thighs, smiling at her whine, dragging out the pleasure to an uncomfortably needy place. And then once he realized how good he was at making her come? He never let her forget it. “Sure, Rey. What about the time when I fucked you so long that you started crying?“ They’d been in line for food, and she’d hissed that he was wrong, that he didn’t know her, should stop talking to her, stop even approaching her—“Remember that?”</p><p>God, it’d been humiliating. Sniffling and then full-on crying from too much pleasure. His eyes had fucking lit up, the weirdo, and he’d bent and been so tender, kissing her gently everywhere but her mouth as he kept thrusting. Just kept going, drawing one more orgasm out of her.)</p><p>Now, the mattress groans as she shifts her knees, restless, pushing against his mouth, her thighs shaking as she sighs. And right before her orgasm approaches the precipice, and she’s just about to—he pulls away. In between blinking bursts of rage, she feels him settle behind her. Then he’s wrapping a huge arm around her waist, pulling her down onto her standard-issue blanket, the one that was the most comfortable she’d ever felt, that he has a tendency to tear off and throw onto the floor when they’re doing this, muttering about how scratchy it is.</p><p>“Come on. Get down here.”</p><p>His tone is still a little off, in a way she can’t figure out, but the words tell her what to expect. A little wild, him laughing as she bites his forearm, quick snapping thrusts, pulling at her hair lazily—he always delights in pulling her hair loose from her buns, so it gets messy and visibly sex mussed—treating like she’s some wild thing to tame and coach and soothe with his cock. Like plunging into her will fix her attitude, when in reality it just makes her angrier, how much she likes this.</p><p>It’s not that, though. Not him fucking her from behind, controlled and calculated in just how much he gives her. Instead, he’s arranged them so she’s laying down, him behind her. And when his cock presses in, their hips flush, it’s gentle. And it’s slow. It gives her a chance to realize how nice it is, their skin pressed together.</p><p>Sometimes—usually—they barely touch. There’s just the slap of his thighs against her skin. A brief moment, no longer than a sigh, when he collapses, his chest sweaty against her nipples, before he lifts himself up to leave. It’s almost excessive to think of how they look like now: all that pale skin pressed against her. His belly against her back. Big hairy thighs rubbing against her smaller, smoother ones.</p><p>Ben’s hands move over her. Warm and slow, massaging. Caressing. She closes her eyes. Not against the intensity of his gaze, this time. But because of the clean pleasure of it. It seems so simple, she thinks, slipping deeper into dangerous, whispering thoughts.</p><p>And then: part two, the resulting crash. Dark hair, a tall figure at the corner of her eye as she’d lost her temper with Luke. Forgotten in the kicked-up churn of feelings, resurfaced doubt that this was the right path, that she was worth the trouble, of passing smiling clusters of friends and wanting to escape back to solitude, not just her room, but leave here for good, because yes she was alone, but there wasn’t any pressure, anyone to disappoint. Ben had seen it all.</p><p>The horrible thought, that this wonderful gentleness is the result of his pity, makes her jerk away from his warmth. But he just seems to think that it’s part of the sex, because he makes a small, helpless noise, pulling her back toward him, mouthing a lazy midpoint between kiss and bite against her neck.</p><p>“Feels so good, Rey.”</p><p>She’s still as he moves behind her. Gently, gently. The noises he’s making: satisfied grunts and exhales. Not his usual snarl. Doing it like this, there’s less emphasis on their separateness, on the reality that they’re two hungry bodies jamming themselves together. This, the slow thrusts, him grinding against her slowly, how he’s lingering inside her instead of jerking himself out to fuck her harder—it's like they're joined, working together towards something.</p><p>And as the heat grows in her, a slow build instead of the spiky chaotic thing it usually is, all she can think, as he keeps moving, keeps panting into her hair, is that there’s nothing. No ulterior motive, no two-steps ahead cleverness to hurt her later. He’s just fucking her in this soothing, loving way because he wants to.</p><p>And so, her eyes hot, her grip tight on the forearm wrapped around her chest, she opens her mouth to tell him to stop. Because Rey can handle pain. But the thought that he might enjoy, might even prefer this softness, this gentleness—the acknowledgement that the thing between them doesn’t need to be all painful jutting angles, a reminder of how much they can both endure (because no one has ever told her, but she has her theories of why he’s like this, not like she’d ever ask, but)—</p><p>That would open the door to too many things. To the fact that sometimes, when she rolls her eyes at his rages, the holes he makes in the wall, the way he talks too quickly about his family and how they don’t think of anything but their legacy over a person’s humanity, she occasionally feels the tiniest glimmer of recognition.</p><p>And acknowledging that she’s like him? That would hurt. And Rey is softer now. She’s become too used to people caring, of belonging somewhere. Even if this place isn’t perfect, even if she sometimes wanted more, was sometimes woken up by 2 a.m., half-forgotten-by morning realizations that there’s still something else she needs, things are so much better now, right? She can’t handle cracking open the possibility that it's not. Because she knows, somehow, that it would release something. Some new, dangerous hurt that would float around her and settle over her, in a way she’s not sure she could claw her way out of.</p><p>And so she opens her mouth to mock him for this gentleness, to get them back to normal. Because this thing, their normal alternating anger, the routine she’s come to rely on—this only hurts sometimes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have been in a total writing rut but after reading <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29249781/chapters/71823177">two very different</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29653605">both great</a> fics last week that explored painful sex in different ways, I was hit with a Flash of Inspiration ™ (thank you for the insp, wonderful creative Reylo community!)</p><p>“Kiss anywhere except the mouth” is from my <a href="https://youtu.be/M-41HdCf7dI">favorite Regina Spektor song</a>, title is from <a href="https://youtu.be/RbhJZ2nlbHE">another high school favorite I am returning to in my regressive quarantine malaise!!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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